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7»fco»1870.* 



S KLLI 

( NON-MORMON. 



»i lEtiition at' .-fFCti 





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sali Lake Cn > 

CHARLKJS KI-Ll: 



Circulated among those who have never 
known the other side of the Mormon story, this 
pamphlet will do much to overcome the prejudice 
so long existing against a fearfully maligned 
people. When you have read, aid Fair Play by 
mailing to a non-Mormon. 

THE AUTHOR. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1891, in the office of the Librarian 
at Washington, by Charles Ellis. 



SEE THIRD PAGE OF COVER. 



UTHH 




*1847^o*1870.4 




By CHARLES ELLIS, 

( NON-MORMON.) 



dFitst IStutton of dFibe STfjousanir, 




COPYRIGHT- ^^ 

Salt Lake City. 

CHARLES EJ 

1891. 
T-L- 






INTRODUCTION. 



The writer of the following pages came to Utah early in 
January, 1889. He brought with him the eastern conception 
of Mormonism and the Mormons. From the Idaho boundar} r 
he rode all day long on a train loaded with people, moving 
from town to town. He knew he was in Mormon-land. He 
stared at the people, trying to detect a "Mormon." Arrived 
in Salt Lake he watched the people carefully for hours, trust- 
ing to his Eastern conception of the Mormons to enable him 
to detect the difference between "Mormon" and "Gentile," but 
in vain. He saw at once that whatever may have been true 
years ago, it was no longer possible to distinguish the classes. 
He has been in Utah most of the time since. He soon saw 
that the Mormons were being misrepresented. He did not 
hesitate to say so. An anti- Mormon paper attacked him for 
defending the Mormons, and refused to publish his reply. He 
concluded that it had been as unjust to the Mormons, probably, 
all these years, as to himself. He went to work quietly to 
investigate. This publication contains the results of his study 
of the "Mormon Question" from the Nauvoo exodus, and from 
the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in Great Salt Lake Valley 
down to 1870. In another publication he will give the history 
of Utah Liberalism, or as it should be called, Utah Anti- 

MOKMONISM. 



N 



u 



47 to '70. 



jj 






"He who feeds men servethfew; 
He serves all who dares be true." 

O ISM of modern times has been so much maligned as 
"Mormonism." None has been so little understood 
The secret of the hostility that it has been compelled to 
struggle against is the fact that it has, from the first, drawn its 
recruits almost wholly from the various evangelical churches. It 
planted itself on the Bible, but added thereto "new revelations." 
The established theologies rose against it as a heresy. Its early 
representatives were, for a time, eagerly met by evangelists in 
debate. But the continual victories won by the Mormon Elders 
over their opponents broke up the debating habit and the new 
heresy was set upon by the mob. A mob was more powerful 
than a debate. But it would not do to say that the mob was 
fighting the Mormons because they were heretics. The govern- 
ment could have been called upon to suppress such an open vio- 
lation of the constitutional guaranty of freedom of thought and 
speech. A new charge had therefore to be manufactured against 
the Mormons, under cover of which they could still be pursued. 
The new charge was "disloyalty to the government." The 
enemies of the Mormons assumed that because the government 
had seen the new sect driven from place to place, robbed and 
many of its members murdered, without interfering to protect it, 
therefore, the Mormons must hate the United States. Hence, 
when they made up their minds to leave the country, the cry 
arose that they were disloyal. How little truth and how mueh 
falsehood there has been in this charge, I propose to show. In 
doing this, I shall begin with the exodus of the Mormons from 
Nauvoo, in 1846, and follow their history in Utah from 1847 to 
1870, setting forth their attitude towards the general govern- 



ment, their struggle for life and their loyalty through misrepre- 
sentation and abuse. 

In January, 1846, when the Mormons were leaving Nauvoo, 
the cry of "disloyalty" was thundered against them and echoed 
and re-echoed over the land. At that time the High Council of 
the Church issued a circular from which I quote : "We declare, 
for the satisfaction of some who have concluded that our griev- 
ances have alienated us from our country, that our patriotism has 
not been overcome by fire, by sword, by daylight, or by midnight 
assassination which we have endured, neither have they alienated 
us from the institutions of our country." 

While the Mormons were crossing Iowa they were visited by 
an officer of the United States army, who had been sent to ask 
them to furnish a battalion of infantry for service in the Mexi- 
can War. A convention of the Mormons was called for the pur- 
pose of filling the battalion. At that meeting, on the 15th of 
July, 1846, Brigham Young said: "After we get through talk- 
ing we will call out the companies; and if there are not young 
men enough we will take the old men, and if they are not* 
enough we will take the women. ... I want to say to 
every man, the Constitution of the United States, as framed by 
our fathers, was dictated, was revealed, was put into their hearts 
"by the Almighty. Although unknown to them, it was dictated by 
the revelation of Jesus Christ, and I tell you in the name of 
Jesus Christ, it is as good as ever I could ask for. I say unto 
you, magnify the laws. There is no law in the United States or 
i?\ the Constitution but I am ready to make honorable." 

In the spring of 1847, Brigham Young, with a band of pio- 
neers, left the Missouri to find a new home for the Mormons 
west of the Rocky Mountains. They celebrated the Fourth of 
July on their march. On the twenty-fourth of that month and 
year they located in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. On the 
lot of land now known as "Temple Block", in Salt Lake City, 
Brigham stuck his spiked cane and said : "Here we shall build 
the Temple of our God," and "here" it stands to-day, slowly, 
but surely approaching completion. 

Why did the Mormons come to this country ? Because they 
had been virtually driven out of the United States. The 



government issued no edict of banishment against them, but citi- 
zens of the Union had been permitted to mob and drive them 
from state to state and they fled at last to secure life and peace- 
They were mobbed and driven because they believed in a real and 
living God who, as they declared, was again revealing his word and 
will to mankind. From its appearance Mormonism, as I have said, 
has been hated by the evangelical sects as a heresy. The cry 
against its polygamy as being a danger to society, and the cry 
against its priesthood as being a danger to the government have 
never been more than subterf uge,the object being to detract atten- 
tion from the real fight, which was to destroy the Mormon heresy. 
This statement will bear full investigation. Mormonism is at 
once the most conservative and the most radical, the most ortho- 
dox and the most heterodox system of faith in the world. Follow- 
ing the letter of the scriptures in its organization, it possesses the 
spirit of modern science, and, indeed, Joseph Smith anticipated 
Herbert Spencer, to some extent, in his great philosophy of 
evolution. Why has Mormonism been so much misunderstood ? 
Simply because the evangelical churches saw in its success their 
own downfall, and they dare not let their own followers know 
what Mormonism was, lest they should embrace it. As compared 
with the evangelical conception of life here and after, of God 
and the glories of immortality, Mormonism is as a Rocky- Moun- 
tain day in May compared with a New England day in March 
when the wind is east and the sun is veiled. Such being the 
case, it may be readily understood that an investigation of early 
Mormon history in Utah will reveal a very different spirit from 
that which has been talked about and written and preached against 
in the east for nearly half a century. 

It has long been charged against the Mormons that they set 
up a church government here instead of a civil or secular con- 
trol. When they came, this was Mexican territory. It was in- 
habited only by Indians, coyotes, jack rabbits, snakes, and 
crickets. The Mormons came, not as a political body, but as a 
church. They came in a state of pauperism. The dire necessity 
upon them was to get something out of the ground upon which 
they could live. Hence, they thought nothing of government, 
and everything of irrigation and farming. But so rapidly did 



6 

their people come that before they had been here two years they 
formed the "Provisional Government of the State of Deseret," 
of which Brigham Young was elected Governor, on the 12th of 
March, 1849. At once delegates were sent to Washington ask- 
ing that "Deseret" be received into the Union. The Mormons 
had been mobbed out of the United States on account of their 
heresy. Their first legislative act in their new home was to 
petition the United States for admission to the Union. On the 
24th of July, 1849, the Mormons held their first celebration in 
the Valley of Great Salt Lake. It has long been charged 
against them that this proves their disloyalty — they had ignored 
the 4th and celebrated the 24th of July, therefore, they must be 
rebels. But why did they pass the Fourth? Because in 1848 
the crickets destroyed the crops and until those of 1849 matured, 
the people were on rations, the only relief being that derived 
from thistle roots and tops in the winter and spring of 1848 and 
1849, and from men rushing to the California gold mines in the 
summer of I849. When the 4th of July came they were still 
hungry, and starvation is not a good basis upon which to at- 
tempt a celebration. But, even if they had not been so hungry, 
I cannot see the disloyalty of celebrating the anniversary of their 
settlement in the first peaceful home they had found in twenty 
years, rather than the natal- day of the nation that had virtually 
driven them out of its confines. But how did the Mormons 
celebrate the 24th ? Much will depend on that. 

They raised a "liberty- pole. :> From its truck they shook 
out an American ensign sixty five feet long. The material was 
purchased on the Atlantic coast and carried 2500 miles by a 
Mormon Elder. The flag was made by Mormon women, and on 
that 24th of July it was mast-headed by Mormon hands. In the 
exercises of the day, the Declaration of Independence was read; 
a copy of the Constitution of the United States was presented to 
Governor Young and the act was greeted with cheers and shouts 
of "may it live forever ! " 

In June, 1849, General John Wilson came to Salt Lake on 
his way to California as Indian Agent. He told the people that he 
had been authorized to remove the Mormons from the lands upon 
which they had settled. I do not believe a word had ever been 



said to him to that effect. I believe it was an attempt to black- 
mail the Mormons. But they had no money to offer and the 
threat created great consternation. They had already been 
driven five times and, judging the future by the past, it seemed 
to them that the threat was based on fact. In a few weeks it was 
learned that a body of troops was coming and the Mormons be- 
lieved they were to execute the threat made by Wilson. Then 
did the Mormons come nearer to rebellion than ever before or 
since. They said they would not be driven again without at- 
tempting to protect their homes against violence — and who that 
is a man will dare to say that they did not do right ? The ap- 
proaching force came in and the leader called on Governor 
Young. The mission was peaceful. It was Lieutenant Stans- 
bury with a corps of United States Topographical Engineers sent 
to survey Salt and Utah lakes. As soon as the purpose of the 
men became known, all anxiety disappeared, and the Mor- 
mons vied with each other in giving aid and comfort to the repre- 
sentatives of the United States army and government. They 
were in the valleys over a year, and in Stansbury's report he said 
the Mormon people, from their President down, had always 
treated them well and aided them in every way possible to prose- 
cute their work. Stansbury was corroborated by Lieutenant 
Gunnison, and the reports of both of those army officers are in 
the archives of the nation and furnish irrefragable evidence 
that up to the summer of 1850, there was no sign of disloyalty 
among the Mormons in the ''State of Deseret." 

On the 9th of September, 1850, an act of Congress created 
the Territory of Utah. On the 28th of the same month and 
year, President Fillmore appointed Brigham Young governor of 
Utah. The act of Congress utterly destroyed the State of 
Deseret. If the Mormons had been "disloyal," as has been 
charged all these years, they would have said or done something 
that would indicate the fact. What did they do ? It took six 
months for news of the act of Congress to reach Salt Lake^ 
where it was received in February, 1851. Within six weeks the 
State of Deseret was buried and its joint legislature, as a last 
act, adopted a series of resolutions, two of which ran as follows: 

"Resolved: That we cheerfully and cordially accept the 



legislation of Congress in the act to establish a Territorial gov- 
ernment for Utah. 

u Resolved: That we welcome the Constitution of the 
United States — the legacy of our fathers— over this Territory." 

As a matter of fact, the fathers and grandfathers of many 
of the men and women identified with early Mor monism were in 
the war of the Revolution or in that of 1812. 

But it has been claimed that Brigham Young was "Mormon- 
ism," that the State of Deseret was the embodiment of his dis- 
loyalty, and that the people were his "slaves." How did he re- 
ceive the act of Congress that at once destroyed his state ? The 
following is from a letter written by President Young to the 
"Saints" abroad : "Coming to this place [valley of the Salt Lake] 
as we did without the means of subsistance, except the labor of 
our hands, in a wilderness country, surrounded by savages whose 
inroads have given occasion for many tedious and expensive expe- 
ditions, the relief afforded by our mother-land through the 
medium of the Territoral organization will be duly esteemed • 
and henceforth we fondly hope the most friendly feelings may be 
warmly cherished between the various states and territories of 
this great nation, whose constitutional character is not to be ex- 
celled." 

"Brigham" saw his State of Deseret absolutely annihi- 
lated and welcomed the Territorial organization in this man- 
ner. There was no word of repining or fault finding. There was 
only joy that he and* his people were once more under the old 
flag and Constitution. 

To my mind it is clear that the charge of disloyalty against 
the Mormons in Utah has never been anything more than a false- 
hood. I have called attention to the formation of the State of 
Deseret in the winter of 1849. Among the first acts of the 
legislature was the incorporation of several cities. In Article IV 
of the act incorporating Great Salt Lake City it is ordained that : 
"The mayor, aldermen and councilors, before entering upon 
their duties, shall take and subscribe an oath or affirmation that 
they will support the constitution of the United States." 

It has been charged against the Mormons that they were 
opposed to schools and education. It is not my purpose to con- 



9 

sider the schools question now, but would say in passing the 
point that Section 11. of the ordinance incorporating the city of 
Salt Lake, in 1849, provides for the establishment of common 
schools. In 1850 the legislature incorporated the University of the 
State of Deseret. Considering how poor the Mormons were when 
they came here and the difficulties with which they had to con- 
tend, their progress in education has been wonderful, their per- 
centage of illiteracy being less to-c ay than that of many states in 
the Union. 

It has been charged against the Mormons of Utah, not only 
that they were disloyal and opposed to the education of their 
children, but that they were opposed to railroads, telegraphs and 
mining. But what are the facts ? In March, 1852, the Mor- 
mon legislature of Utah addressed a Memorial to Congress, ask- 
ing that body to "provide for the establishment of a national cen- 
tral railroad" from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Among the 
reasons given for asking this road, I rind, this : "Your memorial- 
ists are of the opinion that the mineral resources of California 
and these mountains, can never be developed to the benefit of the 
United States, without such a road." 

When at last it was decided to build the road, Brigham 
Young did all he could to have Salt Lake City made the terminus 
of both the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. He wanted 
the latter built around the south side of the Great Salt Lake. 
Failing in that he succeeded in bringing the terminus from Corinne 
back to Ogden, and then he built thirty-eight miles of road, and 
connected Salt Lake with the through roads. He built 400 
miles of the Union Pacific, from Ogden eastward through 
the mountains. He was principal contractor in the erection of 
the first transcontinental telegraph line, and the first message 
across the Rocky Mountains by wire was signed "Brigham 
Young/' 

As to mining, it is true that Brigham was opposed to it, but 
for reasons that add lustre to his memory. 

In 1847, the Mormon Battalion was mustered out of service 
in California. Many of the men remained there and worked 
where they could obtain employment. While digging a mill race 
on the Sacramento River, four Mormons and Thomas Marshall 



10 

discovered gold. Many Mormons at once entered upon the work 
of washing gold. The news spread over the country ai d men 
began to flock to California, In 1849, some 30,000 emigrants 
passed through Salt Lake on their way to the California gold 
fields. The "craze" affected the Mormons, and in the same year 
a company of them left for the mines. In 1850, the Mormons 
established a mint in Salt Lake, and from the dust obtained from 
the California mines, coined $2.50, $5, $10, and $20 gold 
pieces. Men began to prospect for gold in Deseret. The excite- 
ment became high, and Brigham said to the returned Californi- 
ans : "If you find gold here say nothing about it ! " This was 
imperative. The philosophy of the JViormon leader was in sub- 
stance this : 

•'Thousands of Latter-day Saints are gathering to Zion. 
We are a thousand miles from a base of supplies. The first 
necessity upon us is to bring the sage-brush land of the valleys 
into a state of productivity that our people may live. Opening 
mines here will only retard that work. If you rush off to the 
mountains and neglect the farms, the people will starve. Let us 
first get our farms and then we can open the mines and grow 
prosperous in a healthy and enduring way." It was because the 
people acted upon this advice that "the Vales of Deseret" soon 
became the wonder of the continent. That, in later years, 
"Brigham" did not favor mining in Utah was because the 
old hatred of the Mormons in the east followed them and in 
1857 an army was sent to destroy them which brought a greater 
army of border tuffians, who did measureless harm to the Mor- 
mon communities, and Brigham saw that mining would 
but increase that element. Had the United States government 
protected the Mormons, as it might have done, instead of har- 
rassing them, Brigham Young would have lived to have seen in 
Salt Lake a great railroad and mining centre, made so by his 
own guiding and controlling will. That, under existing circum- 
stances, he was opposed to mining only proves the clearness and 
wisdom of his judgment. 

Within three years from the arrival of the Pioneers there was 
a community in Great Salt Lake City of about 8000 people. To over- 
land travelers, as they emerged from the canyons after a tedious 




11 

journey of 500 miles through the mountains, the appearance of the 
valley, and the Mormon city was that of an oasis in a desert. The 
thing that impressed all comers was the wonderful success that 
had attended the Mormon exodus from the east and their settle- 
ment in what had hitherto been known as "The Great American 
Desert." Here were gardens filled with choice vegetables, cot- 
tages buried in shrubbery, fruits that made men eloquent in their 
praise of Mormon thrift and hospitality, little farms well tilled, 
little houses well filled and little wives well willed. Such was the 
state of affairs in Utah at the date of its organization as a terri- 
tory, and before any officer had come to represent the government 
of the United States. What was the secret of success? The 
Mormon people said it was the favor of the Lord. More matter- 
of-fact men said it was due to the fact that over them all was 
the masterful mind of a great leader of men, supported in every 
way by most competent generals. This and the spirit of 
brotherhood that made them in fact "brothers" and "sisters," 
tells the story. They had formed a state and asked for admission 
to the Union. They did not get that. They asked for a Terri- 
torial organization. That came. There never was an hour when 
they were not loyal citizens. They deserved better treatment than 
they subsequently received. 

Turn now to the history of events under the territorial organi- 
zation. In the summer of 1851 the first Federal officials arrived in 
Great Salt Lake City. They were Brandebury (chief justice) , Broc- 
chus and Snow (associate justices) and Harris (territorial secretary). 
They were cordially received. In September, 1851, a special 
conference of the Mormon church was held for the purpose of 
sending a block of Utah stone to Washington to be placed in the 
monument to George Washington. It was an act of patriotism 
that has been forgotten by the Mormon-haters. The newly 
arrived Federal officers were present upon the platform by invi- 
tation. They were introduced to the people. Brocchus made a 
vindictive attack upon the marital relations of some of the 
people. He intimated that polygamous wives were prostitutes. 
The occasion afforded no opportunity for such an attack and the 
speech was not well received. Governor Young asked him to 
come to meeting on the subsequent Sunday and explain to the 



12 

people the meaning of his course. He declined. The Mormons 
so completely ignored the officials on account of this uncalled for 
interference, that they grew lonesome and Brandebury, Broc- 
chus and Harris ran away, the later carrying with him $24,- 
000 belonging to the Territory. The Secretary of State demand- 
ed a reason for their desertion of posts of duty and Brocchus 
wrote : 

"Polygamy monopolizes all the women in Utah and makes 
it very inconvenient for Federal officials to reside there! " 

It would appear from this that the secret of Brocchus' attack 
was, not that he hated polygamy, but that he was not in it and 
could not get in. The three were forced to resign and were suc- 
ceeded by Reed (chief justice), Shaver (associate justice) and 
Ferris (secretary), in August, 1852. Justice Snow was suc- 
ceeded by Styles in 1854, the former having filled his term of 
office. Reed died in New York and was succeeded by Kinney 
(chief justice), August, 1853. Ferris wrote a book against the 
Mormons and ran away. Shaver died in June, 1855, and was 
succeeded by Drummond in autumn of the same year. Shaver 
had been a warm friend of the Mormons and was mourned by 
them; yet their enemies did not hesitate to spread the report that 
the Mormons had poisoned him. Drummond left his wife east 
and brought a female friend with him. A. sister of Mrs. Drum- 
mond was a Mormon wife in Salt Lake. Calling upon Mrs. 
Drummond, as she supposed, this sister made a discovery, the 
result of which was that Drummond found life almost as lonely 
as Brocchus had done. The Mormon people deeply resented 
the presence of such a man and such a "companion" as represen- 
tatives of the government. Drummond — and his "female 
friend" — left Salt Lake in the autumn of 1856 to hold court in 
Carson County (now Nevada) — the "jedge" always took his 
companion upon the bench with him — but he never returned. 
He hastened to California and east via Panama to precipitate a 
war against the Mormons. His letter of resignation was dated 
March 30, 1857, and contained many blasting charges against 
the Mormons, among which were the assertions that they had 
poisoned judge Shaver and killed Lieutenant Gunnison, the two 
men who had been their most staunch non-Mormon friends. 



13 

Later I will call attention to this matter again, but desire now 
to point out the causes that led to the "Utah war. " 



Benton, of Missouri, was one of the most bitter anti- Mor- 
mons in the days of the Missouri anti-Mormon mobs, and the 
murder of the helpless Latter day Saints. He became the 
father-in-law of Fremont. 

When the persecution of the Mormons was drawing to a 
head in Illinois, Governor Ford and Stephen A. Douglas advised 
Joseph Smith to take his people west of the mountains and found 
a government on the soil of Mexico. Mr. Smith seems to have 
determined to do this, for in June, 1844, he, with a party of 
chosen men, crossed the Mississippi at Nauvoo, and in the village 
of Montrose was making preparations to start on a pioneer trip 
in search of a new home for his people. Some inducements 
were used to make him return and in a few days he was murdered 
in Carthage jail. Had he lived, it is thought the Mormon 
exodus across the mountains would have begun in 1845. 

Lieutenant Fremont knew, through the Mormon-hating 
Benton, what Joseph was contemplating. A wave of ambition 
carried him across the mountains in 1843, In 1846 he returned 
to the Pacific coast and set up a government. Stockton and 
Fremont were rival empire-founders. General Kearn|y was sent 
out to take command and form a civil government under the 
United States in California. Fremont refused to recognize him. 
In 1846 also the "Mormon Battalion" was recruited from the 
fleeing Mormons, mustered into the army and sent to California. 
The battalion reached the coast in the winter of 1847, 
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George 
Cooke. Kearn|y asked him if the Mormon soldiers could 
be relied upon. Being assured that they could, in any 
call in the name of the United States, Kearnfy arrested Fre- 
mont and sent him east under a guard composed, in part at least, 
of Mormon soldiers. Thus it is seen that when the Mormon people 
were being driven out of "the States," the government, that had 
never lifted an arm to protect them in life, property and rights of 
conscience, asked them for 520 men to aid in the war with 



14 

Mexico; the men were given; they marched to California; they 
put down the first rebellion against the United States, and 
carried the first American rebel (with the exception of the 
Aaron Burr fiasco) across the continent for trial ! In 1856, 
when Fremont was nominated as the first candidate of the Re- 
publican party for the presidency, he secured his revenge upon 
those Mormon soldiers by having a plank inserted in the plat- 
form stigmatizing polygamy with slavery as "the twin relics of 
barbarism." Benton and Fremont were the parents of national 
political action against the Mormon people. They were 
strengthened by the jealousies, hatreds and conspiracies of mean 
and characterless anti-Mormons in Utah. 

Among the latter was the Judge Drummond to whom I have 
referred. Another was Magraw, of the firm of "Magraw & 
Hockaday" of Salt Lake. They gave a very poor mail service 
across the country under contract with the government. When 
Brigham Young found he could get nothing from Congress for a 
transcontinental railroad, he determined to have an overland ex- 
press. In 1856 a Mormon underbid Magraw & Hockaday and 
secured the overland mail contract. Then Magraw and his part- 
ner swore vengeance and on the 3rd of October, 1856, the former 
wrote from Missouri to President Buchanan a letter containing 
terrible charges against the Mormons and intimating that 
startling things would soon be uncovered. He was evidently in 
collusion with Drummond who, soon after, left Salt Lake to un- 
fold the "startling things" in his letter of resignation in March 
1857. On the 28th of May, 1857, an army was ordered to Utah 
to put down an alleged rebellion against the United States. In 
1858 Congress asked President Buchanan for the data upon 
which he based his conclusion that such a rebellion existed and 
all that he could produce was these letters from Magraw and 
Drummond . 

Whal; was the real state of affairs in Utah as regards the 
loyalty of the Mormons ? 

In the autumn of 1854 Colonel Steptoe came to Salt Lake 
with a body of United States soldiers. They were well received. 
Brigham's term of office had just expired and President Pierce 
asked the colonel to accept the office of Governor of Utah. 



15 

declined and sent a petition to the President signed by all the 
army officers, all the Federal officers and all the prominent "gen- 
tiles" in Utah asking that Brigham Young be re-appointed gov- 
ernor and agent of Indian affairs. That petition is irrefragable 
evidence that up to the autumn of 1854 there 'was no suspicion 
that the Mormons were disloyal or bent upon "rebellion." In 
the month of March, 1856,a convention representing all the people of 
Utah was held in Salt Lake, to frame a state constitution. That 
was done and both Mormons and non-Mormons signed the con- 
stitution and delegates were sent to Washington asking admis- 
sion into the Union. In answer they got the declaration of the 
new Republican party that polygamy and slavery are twin-relics 
of barbarism. At that time there were 75,000 people in the Ter- 
ritory. 

Were the people in a condition to enter upon a rebellion 
against the government ? 

In the summer of 1854 grasshoppers destroyed the crops 
and in the autumn and winter of 1854 and 1855, the people, many 
of them, were very short of provisions. In 1855 the grasshop- 
pers destroyed the crops again, and for a year the people of Utah 
were on rations, and many of them dug roots for food, cut up and 
cooked and ate the hides that had been used to cover their huts. 
The "hand-cart brigade" was so near starvation in 1856 that 
the raw- hide boxes were taken from the hubs of their wheels, 
where they had soaked in grease for months, cooked and eaten. 
That was tenderloin ! If a family was lucky enough to get a 
soup bone, it was boiled day after day as a basis for consomme. 
Children were sent to neighbors to say: "Ma wants to know if 
you will loan her your soup bone to-day." Even after the bone 
had lost its substance and savor as an appetite annihilator, faith, 
as a hope for things not seen, would perhaps induce the hungry 
children to hang the bone in the window and boil its shadow in 
the pot. The families of "Brigham" and "Heber" were on ra- 
tions with the rest, but their doors were never closed to the 
suffering. From the spring of 1855 to the autumn of 1856, 
about the only thing in Utah was appetite, dry, hot, unrelenting 
appetite! The most unhappy men were the doctors and dentists. 
The people were so thin they could not be bled. Having nothing 



16 

to eat, they had no use for teeth, and those who had tooth ache 
loved it because it made them forget their stomachs ! The only 
rebellion in Utah all through those horrible years was in the 
stomachs of the starving people. An old man said to me in 
Epbraim: "What* you say of the famine is true, oh yes, true ! 
I was in it. Two years I ate no bread. In '56 the first wheat 
was ripe in Spanish Fork, and Bishop Snell's father cut it and 
had it ground, and all the people got it free and made bread, 
and you just bet it was sweet ! " 

The grasshoppers did not come in '56 ; the crops were boun- 
tiful ; appetite was appeased, and there was no more sign of re- 
bellion in Utah then than there is to-day. But what was the 
matter with the grasshoppers ? They had heard from Fremont, 
Drummond and Magraw ; they seemed to know of the infamous 
hatred against the Mormons, and a conscientious impulse deter- 
mined them not to be caught aiding such an inhuman scheme of 
annihilation ! Besides, they may have wanted the Mormons 
spared to raise food for them in after years ! I have a sincere 
respect for the character of those grasshoppers. It stands 
out well in comparison with that of the conspirators who 
were seeking to destroy the Mormons ! 

The winter of '56 and '57 was very severe, and there were 
no mails. When the army was ordered to Utah in the spring 
of '57 the mails were held back. The Mormons heard nothing 
from the east from November, 1856, until a messenger arrived in 
July, 1857. They knew nothing of the outcry against them, 
nothing of the coming army. July 24th, 1857, was the tenth 
anniversary of the coming of the Pioneeis. They determined to 
have a grand celebration. There were no grasshoppers in sight, 
the crops promised well, the people were prosperous and happy. 
On the 24th, thousands of them gathered in Big Cottonwood 
Canyon for the celebration. The stars and stripes floated from 
many a tree top, cannon woke the echoes from crag to crag, 
hymns rose, songs were sung, there was dancing also, and joy 
sat enthroned in the hearts of the men and women who thanked 
God that they possessed the blessings of home, of country and 
religion. Into the midst of the festivities came a swift messen- 
ger, who had traveled 513 miles in five days and three hours, to 



17 

tell the people that the mails were stopped and an army was 
coming to destroy them ! It was a startling announcement. 
There, in the shadows of the eternal, cloud-compelling mountains, 
with darker shadows swift-risen upon their hearts, were men and 
women who had escaped from the angry mobs of other days at 
Far West, Kirtland and Nauvoo. Into the sunshine of their 
present joy, suddenly rose the blood-red vision of the past. Again 
they saw the angry populace pressing upon them j saw their 
fathers murdered; their wives and daughters distained, dis- 
honored ; saw the soil soaked with the blood of their loved 
ones ; saw their homes destroyed and themselves driven empty- 
handed into a world that gave them nothing but curses and blows. 

Now that was all coming upon them again, but this time 
it was the tread of the nation's soldiers they heard in the dis- 
tance. It was indeed a tearful and a fearful hour, as the 
blanched faces of mothers and children turned in painful sus- 
pense to hear what their leader would say. 

Good an ti- Mormon readers, I pray you put yourselves in their 
places! Supposing that you had gone through the same experi- 
ence that had been the hard lot of those driven Mormons, tell me 
what you would have done under the same circumstances! With 
rising hearts you listen to tales of heroism handed down from 
the mouldering past. You never tire of honoring the men who 
in the long ago breasted the iron hail of pike and battle-axe in 
defence of home and loved ones. You have tears for 
the brave, and crowns. You have honor for every hero 
who smote tyranny to make way for liberty in all the ages gone. 
Tell me, then, what you would have done had you stood where 
stood those Mormons on that awful day, your faces wet with 
tears of memory and your hearts appalled at the threatening 
danger marching swiftly over the plains! Would you have fal- 
len upon your bellies and crawled like whipped curs to lick the 
feet that came to spurn you, to kiss the bayonet as it entered 
your heart? Would you have waited tamely to see your homes 
once more destroyed and then turned away to tramp another 
thousand miles beyond the land of boasted freedom, to seek 
another spot where your hymns might arise without offense 
to other sects that were envious of you? No! Had you been 



18 

men you would have stood up and said, as did Brigham Young : 
"We have transgressed no law, neither do we intend so to do, 
and as for any nation coming to destroy this people, God Al- 
mighty helping me, it shall not be!" When the wolves of big- 
otry that have yelped for years around the Mormon people are 
forgotten, that speech of Brigham Young will shine in the 
annals of heroism. 

From that hour Brigham Young moved the great com- 
mander that he was. The Mormon defense was organized at 
once. A trusted messenger was sent to Washington with Gov- 
ernor Young's prompt avowal that no army would be allowed 
to enter the Territory. That messenger was accompanied 
by scouts, one of whom returned from each body of troops that 
was met, so that long before the army entered the mountains 
Brigham knew all about it. That messenger speeded from 
Washington to England and sent home every Mormon who had a 
family to protect in Utah. Everything moved on the straightest 
line to the goal under the guiding will of the great leader. Be- 
fore a messenger from the army reached Salt Lake, the Mormon 
people were ready for action in defending their homes, or 
to destroy them, if that became necessary. 

In September came Captain Van Vliet from the army. He 
met no opposition, but soon learned that the Mormon people had 
fully decided what to do. He found a people terribly in earnest. 
Governor Young said to him: "We do not want to fight the 
United States, but if they drive us to it, we will do the best we 
can. We are supporters of the Constitution of the United 
States. We love that Constitution and respect the laws, but it is 
by the corrupt administration of those laws that we have been 
made to suffer." In the captain's report to his commanding 
officer, he said: "The governor received me most cordially and 
treated me during my stay with the greatest hospitality and 
kindness. He stated that the Mormons had been persecuted, 
murdered and robbed in Missouri and Illinois, both by the mob 
and State authorities and that therefore he and the people of 
Utah had determined to resist all persecution at the commence- 
ment, and that the troops now on the march for Utah should not 
^nter the Great Salt Lake Valley." The captain told the gov- 



19 

ernor that while he might prevent the present force from enter- 
ing, a larger force would come in the spring. Governor Young 
replied: "We are aware of that, but when that army comes, 
Utah will be a desert. . . . We will cache our provisions, 
take to the mountains and bid defiance to all the powers of the 
government." 

Then the governor issued a proclamation from which I quote: 
"For the last twenty-five years we have trusted officials of the 
government from constables and justices to judges, governors and 
presidents, only to be scorned, held in derision, insulted and be- 
trayed. Our opponents have availed themselves of prejudices 
against us to send a formidable host to accomplish our destruction. 
We have had no privilege, no opportunity of defending ourselves 
from the false, foul and unjust aspersions against us before the 
nation. . . . Our duty to ourselves, to our families, re- 
quires us not to tamely submit to be driven and slain, without 
an attempt to preserve ourselves. . . . Therefore, I, Brigham 
Young, Governor of Utah, forbid all armed forces of every 
description from coming into this Territory under any pretense 
whatever." 

That was done September 15th, 1857. It was certainly a 
defiance of the government, and yet I believe the circumstances 
justified it. The colonists had less cause to rebel against Great 
Britain than the Mormons had to resist the coming of an army 
to crush them for an alleged rebellion that never existed. The 
colonists [had not been mobbed, murdered and driven from their 
homes. The Mormons had been. They finally left the country 
for safety. They formed a government and then asked to be ad- 
mitted into the Union. Instead, they got a territorial govern- 
ment which they accepted gladly. They made a fruitful land out 
of what had long been considered a desert. Malicious men had 
aroused the nation against them and an army was at their doors. 
To them the coming of that army could mean only the old strife 
renewed. It meant murder, robbery and a new exodus into the 
unknown. They resolved to resist and I maintain that they did 
only what any other people would have done under the circum- 
stances, and I believe the verdict of impartial history will be 
that they did right. 



20 

Of course, the troops cameou. Governor Young sent out his 
forces to meet them. The commanding officer of the approach- 
ing army said he should enter the valley. Governor Young wrote 
him : — "If you come here for peaceful purposes you have no 
use for weapons of war. We wish and ever have wished for peace 
. as our bitterest enemies know full well ; and though the 
wicked with the administration at their head, have determined 
that we shall have no peace, except it be to lie down in death, in 
the name of Israel's God we will have peace, even though we be 
compelled by our enemies to fight for it ! " 

In those days Brigham and his compatriots said many 
things that sound harsh and fanatical and even rebellious now, 
but we have only to be broad and fair enough to consider the ma- 
licious causes working against them to see and say that any other 
people in the same trying position would have said substantially 
the same. Few men, however, would have extricated a people 
from a most perilous situation as skilfully as did that master Mor- 
mon. He took in the situation at a glance. Knowing that 
the charges against the Mormons were based on malicious misrep- 
resentation, his hope was to keep, the army back until the Presi- 
dent could be induced to send men to Utah in whom he could 
trust for the truth. It was to carry out this plan that Brigham 
worked. Colonel Kane to whom his messenger was sent, was a 
noble coadjutor. He was a grand man who could neither have 
been exalted or debased by membership in any church. He 
was ever the friend of the oppressed. He induced Buchanan to 
send a peace commission as soon as the melting snows would 
allow them to cross the mountains, and he himself, though sick, 
became a special envoy from the President to Governor Young, 
making the journey to Utah by Panama and California, 
arriving in Salt Lake in midwinter of 1857. 

But, of course, while Brigham was waiting to get a Commis- 
sion from Washington the coming army must be held at bay. 
For that purpose the Utah militia was mobilized. Years and years 
ago I used to read of the wonderful power of the Mormons. 
One of the adduced proofs was that they had produced an army 
better uniformed and equipped than were the United States 
troops. Much fun have I had in these my Utah years in study- 



21 

ing that old tale. There were about 1200 of the Utah militia. 
George A. Smith, one of the Mormon apostles, said in regard to 
the charge that the Mormons were rebels because they were so 
well uniformed: "I know all about that uniform. I helped to 
fit out many of the men, and I tell you there weren't any two of 
them uniformed alike — by gracious, I don't believe any one 
of them was uniformed alike ! " That was just after the grass- 
hopper war and people were poor. Clothing was very scarce. 
Overcoats were unknown quantities, as a rule. There were no 
supplies of underclothing, and it was coming winter. Women 
emptied beds, cut up the "ticks" and make shirts for the soldiers. 
Rag carpets were taken up and made into pants, and gunnysacks 
were utilized for Wellington boots. There were pants without 
bottoms, and bottoms without pants before they got through the 
winter. There were hickory pants with ticking patches on the 
seat of custom, and there were pants made from cows' hair. The 
women gathered the hair, mixed in a little wool, carded it, spun it, 
wove it and made it into garments for the men. Ah me, what a 
motley crew must have been that uniformed Utah militia as it went 
on duty to keep the invader from its homes! The equipments, too! 
Old muskets with barrels and no locks and old locks with stocks 
and no barrels. Swords without scabbards and scabbards with- 
out swords! Pistols that went off only when they were carried. 
But they were men, those Mormon militiamen, who were armed 
with a cause that was just and hence they were thrice armed! It 
were well for the nation to keep such men its friends. Looking 
back at it all, the charge of"rebellion"is seen to have been a lie and 
the action of the Mormons in keeping that army out seems like 
a joke. There was Lot Smith, the dashing cavalry commander 
of the Utah militia. With twenty- three half naked and ragged 
Mormons armed with old knives and such guns as they could get, 
he corralled and burnt a train of fifty-two government wagons 
loaded with stores and protected by more than half a hundred 
well armed men. The hateful stories against the Mormons made 
them a terroi to the soldiers. They accomplished all for which 
they were put into the field, and yet they did not shed one drop of 
human blood ! They held the army back until snow came and 
banked them in at Camp Scott. When the snows were gone all 



22 

danger had melted away; Brigham Young was master of the 
situation. 

Colonel Kane went to Camp Scott in March, 1858, with an 
escort of Utah militia. He was arrested as a Mormon spy, but 
feeble as he was is said to have broken a gun stock over the head 
of the man who attempted to force the indignity upon him, and 
then he challenged General Albert Sidney Johnston. He per- 
suaded Governor Cumming, who had been appointed to super- 
cede Governor Young, to put trust in the Mormons and go with 
him to Salt Lake. On the 5th of April they left camp. Many 
a greyheaded "Saint" has told me of the fun the militia had with 
the governor going through Echo Canyon. The road 
was very crooked. At each curve where it touched the 
cliffs was a fire, a lot of men and a salute for the 
governor. But it was night and the governor could not see that 
a dozen men were doing it all, and while the team was getting 
over a long crook in the road, they were hurrying across by short 
cuts and making ready to receive him with uniformed-Utah-mili- 
tia honors. The governor made up his mind the woods were 
full of Mormons and was no doubt surprised that they did not 
roast him on one of their fires. 

The party reached Salt Lake on the 12th of April, 1858. 
Ex-Governor Young called on Governor Cumming and the two 
men became fast friends. On the 15th of April the governor 
addressed a note to the commander of the army at Camp Scott, in 
which he said: "I have everwhere been recognized as Gover- 
nor of Utah; and so far from having encountered insults or in- 
dignities, I have been universally greeted with such respectful 
attentions as are due to the representative authority of the 
United States in the Territory." Of Brigham Young he said in 
the same note: "He has evinced a willingness to afford me 
every facility I may require for the efficient performance of my 
administrative duties." In a letter to Secretary Lewis Cass, of 
May 2nd, 1858, enclosing copy of letter to General Johnston, the 
governor says: "Since my arrival, I have been employed in 
examining the records of the Supreme and District Courts, which 
I am now prepared to report as being perfect and unimpaired." 
It will be remembered that I promised to refer again to "Judge" 



23 

DrummoncPs charge against the Mormons in his letter of resigna- 
tion. One of his malevolent assertions was that the Mormons 
had destroyed the records of these courts. Meantime the Mor- 
mons had deserted their homes. In the same letter to Secretary 
of State Cass, the governor speaks of this new exodus: "The 
roads are everywhere filled with wagons loaded with provisions 
and household furniture, the women and children often without 
shoes or hats, driving their flocks they know not where. They 
seem not only resigned, but cheerful. . . . Young, Kimball 
and most of the influential men have left their commodious man- 
sions, without apparent regret, to lengthen the long train of 
wanderers." On the 10th of June, 1858, President Buchanan 
submitted this letter to Congress and referring to Governor 
Cumming's communication says: "From this there is reason 
to believe that our difficulties with the Territory of Utah have 
terminated, and the reign of the Constitution and laws have been 
restored." Poor old man, why could he not have admitted that he 
had been deceived by Drummond, Magraw and others, and that 
the Mormons had never for an hour "gone back" on the Constitu- 
tion ? His blunder cost the nation twenty millions of dollars, 
and the Mormons untold suffering and loss. 

Late in May, 1858, Governor Cumming brought his family 
in from Camp Scott and the extent of the exodus may be 
measured by his wife's surprise. Speaking of Salt Lake she 
said : "It has the appearance of a city that has been afflicted 
with a plague ! [It had !] Every house looks like a tomb of 
the dead ! For two miles I have seen but one man in it ! " She 
appealed to her husband to bring them back. In reply he said : 
"I only wish I could be in Washington for two hours ; I am 
persuaded I could convince the government that we have no need 
for troops ! " Such was the voice of the man who had started 
for Utah with an army, believing that the Mormons were rebels, 
trying to destroy the government of the United States. 

Early in June, 1858, a Peace Commission arrived from Wash- 
ington. Brigham and a strong guard returned to Salt Lake to 
meet them. The commissioners brought a proclamation from 
President Buchanan, charging the Mormons with being traitors, 
and accusing them of many other crimes, for all of which full 



24 

pardon was granted. The commissioners assured the Mormon 
leaders that the commander of the troops had promised not to 
move until their labors as commissioners were terminated. 
At the first session a messenger from the mountains announced 
that the army was coming. That roused the people anew. Next 
day Brigham made a speech that reveals some fanaticism, a little 
buncombe, a portion of bravado and a great deal of courage of the 
highest order. It is too long to quote here, but a few sentences 
may be given. He began by saying: "I thank President 
Buchanan for forgiving me, but really I cannot tell what I have 
done. I know one thing, the people called ' Mormons/ are a loyal 
and law-abiding people, and have ever been. True, Lot Smith 
burned some wagons and supplies belonging to the army. If it 
is for this we are to be pardoned, I accept the pardon. Yet 
for that, combined with false reports, the whole Mormon people 
are to be destroyed .... What has the United States 
government permitted mobs to do to us ? We have been whipped 
and plundered ; our houses burned ; our fathers, mothers, broth- 
ers, sisters and children butchered by the scores. We have been 
driven from our homes time and again, but have troops ever 
been sent to stay or punish those mobs ? No ! Have we ever 
received a dollar for the property we have been compelled to leave 
behind ? Not a dollar ! Let the government treat us as we 
deserve. This is all we ask of them. We have always been loyal 
and expect to continue so, but hands off. Do not send your 
armed mobs into our midst. If you do we will fight you, as the 
Lord lives ! . . . Our wives and children will go to the 
canyons and take shelter in the mountains, while their husbands 
and sons will fight you . . . No mob can live in the homes 
we have built in these mountains. That's the programme, gen- 
tlemen commissioners, whether you like it or not. If you want 
war you can have it. If you wish for peace, peace it is, we shall 
be glad of it// 

In the proclamation sent out by President Buchanan, dated 
April 6, 1858, it was averred: ''Officers of the federal govern- 
ment have been driven from the Territory for no offense but an 
effort to do their sworn duty." Let us see. Chief Justice 
Brandebury, Justice Brocchus and Secretary Harris came in 



25 

1851, made an attack on polygamy and were let so severely alone 
that they ran away. Not a hand was raised, not a threat made 
against them. In 1855 came Judge Drummond, with his 
"female friend," said to have been an ancient flame of a famous 
senator, in Washington. When the Mormon people learned of his 
perfidy they treated him with the same silent contempt that they 
had shown to Brocchus et al., and in a year he ran away. In four 
years four federal officers ran away from Utah because they had 
attempted to meddle with matters outside of their "sworn duty" 
and the Mormons had simply let them alone. I might add here 
that Governor Dawson came in 1861 as the successor of Governor 
Cumming. He made indecent proposals to a Mormon lady and 
ran away, having been here but a few weeks. Dawson was suc- 
ceeded by Governor Harding. His house-keeper became encitnte. 
She swore that either Governor Harding or his son was father of 
her child. The governor and his son ran away to escape prosecu- 
tion for adultery. The President's proclamation further 
declared: "Others [federal officers] have been prevented from 
going there [to Utah] by threats of assassination." In 1849 Lieu- 
tenant Stansbury was informed that if he went to Salt Lake the 
Mormons would murder him. He came in and met no opposi- 
tion; remained a year and said the Mormons had done all they 
could to aid him. Governor Cumming was informed that the 
Mormons would kill him. When he came in he wrote back to 
General Johnston that he had been everywhere received as the 
governor of the Territory and had been shown, by all, the respect 
due to a representative of the national government. All of 
which confirms my statement that the famous "Utah rebellion" 
existed only in the imagination of evil-minded persons who 
wanted the Mormons driven out of Utah or annihilated. 

Brigham agreed with the peace commissioners that the army 
should march through the city, if it would go forty miles beyond 
it. The "programme" was accepted and there was a nominal 
"peace." The army came on. The Mormons joined their people 
in the exodus southward. About 300 men were left con- 
cealed in Salt Lake prepared to destroy the city if the terms were 
violated. The army reached the city about the 24th of June. 
From early morn to set of sun, the long train moved through the 



26 

city that had left none so poor as to do it reverence. It was like 
marching through a graveyard when you were too lonesome even 
to whistle! The only sign of life was the appearance of an 
abandoned Mormon chicken, forgotten in "the move/' now and 
again seen on the cobblestone walls about the "Beehive" corner 
announcing in a crow of mingled defiance and regret, "theres-no- 
Mormons-he-e-e-e-r-r-e \" General Johnston kept the terms, the 
army crossed the Jordan and on to Camp Floyd, from whence it 
was recalled to serve in the civil war and from whence Johnston 
went to die in rebel uniform on ShUon's hard fought field. God 
rest his soul. 

Governor Cumming and the commissioners followed the mov- 
ing people and plead with them to return. On the 5th of July, 
1858, Brigham told the people that he would go back and they 
should do as they thought best. Many followed him and many 
remained in the south and made new homes, having no faith that 
the promises of peace and protection would be kept. As the 
people came home they found the streets green with knot- 
grass and the houses just as they had been abandoned. But 
alas ! the people were so poor that they were almost naked ! 
From the coming of the grasshoppers in 1854 they had had little 
but want and woe. But with a courage as divine as ever swelled 
a heart they began life once more at the bottom. The story of 
that living martyrdom of women and children should make the 
heart of the nation ache with pity and remorse! 

For a time the peace was kept, but soon the federal officers 
were importuning the governor to have the Mormon leaders tried 
for treason. To all such efforts Governor Cumming opposed a 
sturdy "by G — d, gentlemen, you can't do it ! " The federal 
judges appealed to General Johnston for troops in the towns where 
they held court. Johnston, eager to overcome the governor, sent 
them; the people protested. The governor ordered the troops 
withdrawn. He was disobeyed. The federal judges induced 
Johnston to attempt to march a large part of his army into Salt 
Lake and seize Brigham. The governor called out the Utah 
militia and Johnston did not come. 

J. S. Black, United States Attorney- General, sent the federal 
judges an opinion, condemning their action in calling for 



27 

troops, ordered the troops withdrawn, to remain subject to the 
commands of the governor. Then the judges broke up their 
courts. One of them, Cradlebaugh, with Judge Sinclair, had been 
determined to have the Mormon leaders tried for treason, refusing 
to admit that President Buchanan's pardon of them had wiped 
out their alleged crimes. Finding that he could not get those 
men into court he said to the grand jury as he discharged it: 
"If this court cannot bring you to a proper sense of your duty it 
can at least turn the savages held in custody loose upon you ! " 
That, too, he did — adjourned court sine die and let the prisoners 
go. Anti-Mormons, including United States officials, stirred up 
the Indians to make war upon the Mormons, bribing them with 
guns, ammunition, blankets, etc. It took the Mormons ten years 
to overcome the trouble then made among the Indians. 

The people were excited to a painful degree and under a less 
powerful head would have rushed into conflict that could have 
ended only in their annihilation and the extermination of Mor- 
monism. But Brigham controlled and saved his people and made 
for Mormonism a place among the world-religions. In those 
trying times, Brigham Young showed himself a wonderful leader 
and a mighty man, whose equal the world has not often seen. 
Through it all he held his people up to his own faith in Ameri- 
can liberty, and on the 4th of July, 1859, the Mormons held a 
grand celebration. Then came the rebellion and civil war. The 
Mormons had won against force, but they were soon to find 
themselves confronted by the hydra of politics. 

Much has been said about the Mormons sending no soldiers 
to help the Union in the war, and I had been led to believe that 
they refrained from feelings of disloyalty. I had even been 
assured by an anti-Mormon of Salt Lake that they offered 
to recruit a regiment for the South. When I asked why the 
offer was not accepted, I was told that General Albert Sidney 
Johnston, to whom the offer is said to have been made, refused to 
accept the men, because it would turn the North against the Mor- 
mons, and cause their destruction. 

The weakness of this story is seen in the fact that Johnston 
was 1?he man who had been for years the bitter enemy of the Mor 
mons,and had they wanted to send troops to aid the South, he 



28 

would have been about the only rebel to whom they would not 
have gone. 

Furthermore, it is not surprising, when we consider what the 
Mormon had undergone between 1854 and the breaking out of the 
civil war, that they did not feel called upon to offer their services. 
But I find that in 1862, Ben. Halliday, who was running the over- 
land mail, went to Mr. Lincoln and asked for troops to protect 
the mail against the Indians. Mr. Lincoln said he would see 
what could be done, but asked Halliday what he would advise. 
The reply was that if he were president he would telegraph to 
Brigham Young, asking him to raise a company of men, have them 
mustered in as United States troops, and send them out. Mr. 
Lincoln would see what could be done. In a short time Halli- 
day called upon him again. Mr. Lincoln said it was utterlv 
impossible to spare men from the front. Halliday again suggested 
the request to Brigham. Mr. Lincoln said : "Flldoit. "He did, 
and within thirty-six hours from the time Brigham received his 
dispatch, a company of one hundred men was enlisted in Salt Lake, 
sworn in as United States troops, and were on the march through 
the canyons. Later a second company was raised in the same way 
and as promptly. Looked at in every way, I can see no evidence 
to prove the charge that Brigham and his people were disloyal. 
But for years they had been fearfully harrassed ; their prosperity 
had largely been destroyed; their work had suffered, and they 
felt possibly that their first duty was to recuperate from the 
rebellion that had been forced upon them at the point of the 
bayonet. 

In 1862, Utah again sent delegates to Washington asking, 
admission to the union of states. She was answered by the 
passage of the anti-polygamy bill. A part of the Mormon faith 
was made a crime in the territories; the corporation of the Mor- 
mon church was annulled, and all church property above 
a value of $50,000 escheated to the nation. Still the Mormons 
went on digging ditches, irrigating the sage-brush desert and 
making fruitful farms. 

The party republican war begun against the Mormons through 
the enmity of Fremont and Benton, in 1856, and renewed in 
Congress in 1862, and later, is almost ended. But in 1862 



29 

men who did not know the Mormons, said they would rebel 
against the anti-polygamy law, and the California volunteers were 
sent to Salt Lake. But there was no need of troops. The 
Mormons will resist when another attempt is made to drive them 
from their homes, and when that time comes, if come it must, 
what vigor of life yet remains in me will go with them. That 
there was no rebellion among them then was clearly seen and un- 
derstood when they joined freely and sincerely with the troops in 
Utah to celebrate the second inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, in 
social festivities. It was seen again when a few weeks later, the 
Mormons united with the military in their tribute of respect and 
sorrow over the nation's martyred son. 

The years 1865-6-7 found the Mormons busy protecting 
themselves against Indians. It cost them over a million dollars, 
and the nation has never reimbursed them. Can it be wondered 
at if — with their church corporation destroyed and millions of 
dollars worth of property confiscated; their men unpaid for a 
ten years' struggle against Indians; their women disfranchised ; 
all their polygamous men made felons and disfranchised; their 
rights in the regulation of elections taken from them; every one 
of them barred out of the jury box; all forced to submit to trial 
before men who are bitterly prejudiced against them, while the 
mob that murdered some of their people in Missouri and Illinois, 
and drove the survivors away, were paid for their infamous work 
and permitted to steal property worth, as a non-Mormon said, in 
1850, not less than $20,000,000 — can it be wondered at, I say, 
if, considering all this, the Mormon people feel that the nation has 
been unjust to them ? I think not, and I believe the honest men 
and women of the country need only to learn the truth to con- 
cede that I am right. 

Finding that all the world and particularly the Americans 
were against them, the Mormons were forced nearer to each other 
for self-protection. They inaugurated and carried to its first 
great success in this country the system of co-operation. They 
established co-operative stores and factories, and their great 
"Co op" or Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of Salt 
Lake, with its branches, is one of the wonders of the mercantile 
world. It has done as high as $6,000,000 of business in a single 



30 

year, and is still in most successful operation. But the appear- 
ance of this movement was greeted with a greater outcry from the 
anti-Mormons than was ever raised against their polygamy. It 
was seen that they #ere to keep their money among themselves 
and as it was money that the gentiles came to Salt Lake to 
acquire, this movement was received as a direct blow against 
them. The cry was raised that the Mormon church would not 
allow its people to trade with gentiles. There may or may not 
have been truth in this charge, but this I know that many a 
gentile firm has grown rich on Mormon custom and this fact 
ought to be sufficient answer to the charge that the church tried 
to coerce its members. 

In 1869 Schuyler Colfax came to Salt Lake the second time. 
On his first visit, in 1865, he had manifested a warm interest in 
the 'Mormon people. In 1869 he declined to accept a public re- 
ception tendered by the Mormon city council. He too had be- 
come an anti-Mormon. At that time what was known as "The 
New Movement," an attempt at what was called "a reform" inside 
of the Mormon church, was attracting attention. It was not an 
anti-polygamy movement, for most of the men who joined it 
from the Mormon ranks were polygamists. It was in the main a 
movement against the power of Brigham Young. Colfax 
yearned for this movement, even though it had no plank in its 
platform, no revelation from its seers and revelators, against that 
one tenet of the Mormon faith that the nation had been denounc- 
ing and fighting for two decades, Colfax took this new move- 
ment babe in his arms and blessed it. He had great confidence 
in it. He believed that it would soon become a giant that would 
"knock Brigham out" and split and kill Mormonism. But Colfax 
did not know with what stronger than hooks of steel a great 
leader binds himself and his followers together. While a man 
of the Old Guard remained, he never faltered in his allegiance to 
even the dead Napoleon. While Brigham Young lived nothing 
could shake the allegiance of those who had for years felt the 
peerless attraction of their great leader. Even those who be- 
lieved they could reform him in what they deemed an over-as^ 
sumption of power still make willing concession that "Brigham 
was a great man." 



31 

He was ; and when the world sees him as he was j when the 
clouds of falsehood condensed above the quagmires of hate have 
been scattered by the sun of truth and the world is permitted for 
the first time to see the man, it too will declare that Brigham 
Young was a great man ! From 1847 to 1870, through trials 
that would have left an average man defeated and broken before 
he had fairly entered upon them, he was a William of Orange, a 
Cromwell, and, to his own people, a Washington. 

His enemies have never wearied of pointing to the great walls 
he had built in Salt Lake as evidence that he was preparing to 
defy the government. Those walls would be no obstacle to an 
army, and they were built in the years when thousands of poor 
Mormons were coming into the country without means of sub- 
sistence. Brigham was opposed to feeding paupers, and to make 
a way for wise charity, he kept hundreds of poor men at work 
building cobblestone walls, that he might support them by the 
church funds. Well would it be if all charity were as wisely be- 
stowed. He made men industrious, and filled Utah with thriving 
farmers, by teaching the importance of industry. 

In the stormy days of that infamous "war" he was a king 
among men — "aye, every inch a king ! " He was the invincible 
protector of a people who had done no wrong; who had been 
guilty of no crime save that of holding a faith that was repudi- 
ated by a crystalized and corrupt theology. Such kings as he 

"Repress the bold, 
And while they nourish, make an age of gold." 

He found Utah a desert; he made it a garden. From the 
despotisms of social life in other lands, he took tens of thousands 
of people unto whom life offered nothing, for whom a Christianity 
of caste had nothing but stones and scorpions, and made them 
prosperous, loyal citizens of the fruitful valleys of this divine 
mountain land. 

He lived and died a lover of the Constitution of his native 
land, and left behind him a great, strong, united people who, 
when the ambitious Catholic priesthood and the intriguing com- 
bination of protestant priesthoods have clutched the Constitution 
of our country to destroy it and banish freedom from the land, 



32 



will be among the foremost to spring to the rescue and drive back 
the vandal hosts of tyranny ! For all these reasons, I say Brig- 
ham Young never was, the Mormon people never were, are not 
now, and I have faith that they never will be, disloyal to the Con- 
stitution and the flag. 




Below are fac similes of the signatures of the three men who led 
the Mormon people through that "infamous Utah War" without the 
shedding of "one drop of human blood." 



^?^VJ^W\}>W 



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Utah hectares. 



Engagements solicited everywhere, in and 
oat of this Territory, to deliver a part or the 
whole of these Leetares on important and timely 
sabjects: 

1. The Utah Situation. 

2. Disfranchisement. 

3. Escheat Robbery. 

4. The Test Oath. 

5. Mormonism. 

6. Statehood. 

For particulars, address: 

Charles Ellis 

58 East, 2nd North St., 

Salt Lake City, Utah. 



• 1 *S«»««^S«i^ ( *»«*N/»»*" u ^y^/V 



N. B.-Mr. Ellis' Lectures : " Utah, '47 to 
'70," and "Utah Liberalism, 1 ' in pamphlet form, 
fine paper and large type, mailed on receipt of 
price, 25 cents each. Address as above. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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